


clothes maketh man

by meingottlieb



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, OT3, Season/Series 07, The TARDIS closet gets Rory laid, flustered!Doctor, plotting!Amy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 12:22:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19887727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meingottlieb/pseuds/meingottlieb
Summary: A dinner date on the frozen planet of Xeron 7 leads to a realization and, more importantly, a scheme. (Sort of.)





	clothes maketh man

**clothes maketh man**

His hair’s gotten longer.

He’s sure of it.

It didn’t use to fall over his eyes, at least of that he’s confident-- it always had a spiky predilection, eager to poof up like he’d just lost a fight with a balloon animal. Now he has to comb it to the side and the spikes go kind of wild, like the limp ruffled points of a star, and he doesn’t mind it. It’s funny how things like that slip from your mind, when you’re running for your life-- dashing away from egomaniacal aliens or multiplying aliens or  _ cannibalistic  _ aliens (who decide the taste of human is much better than the lizardy people-strips that Rory nearly ate on accident). Things like a weird little wrinkle on the side of his mouth that might be a laugh line-- didn’t have that before-- or things like ‘personal style’, as Amy would put it. Rory never used to wear button-ups or jumpers or anything remotely resembling tight trousers. He’s more of a wrinkled tee and jeans (occasionally scrubs) kind of guy. Or at least, he _had_ been, but now he can just walk into the TARDIS wardrobe whenever his clothes get clawed up or spewed on and... just choose something new. Amy had loved that at first, obviously, but he hadn’t liked it all that much in the beginning. There’s something decidedly awkward about wearing clothes that could’ve been worn by someone else-- in any time, on any planet-- and it wasn’t until they had to go incognito on a planet completely populated by humanoid women (Good  _ God _ , he would never question women’s fashion routines again,  _ ever _ ) that he’d even had to use a scrap of the TARDIS’s closet. 

Then it became routine, becoming The Closet instead of Her Second Bedroom, and Amy really likes it when Rory wears tighter jeans and who is he to deny her?

Now, standing in front of the mirror, he almost doesn’t recognize himself. He looks like...like he could actually be married to Amelia Pond. Like if someone were to look at them and learn they were a couple, there wouldn’t be raised eyebrows or surprised, poorly subtle comments wondering how it could be possible that Amy-- all long legs and flaming hair and everything anyone ever wanted in a gorgeous ginger package-- could have ended up with  _ him,  _ Rory Williams, all gangly limbs and pale skin and that silly, beaky,  _ Roman  _ nose.

The bloke in the mirror has a blond head of controlled chaos, and tidy blond scruff inching from his jawline down his chin in a dare-he-say-it devil-may-care, purposeful sort of way. (He’d never been anything but clean-shaven before, never in his life, but Amy got what she wanted from him in every way.) The taut line of his shoulders is prominent and smooth beneath the deep blue cut of his jacket, which is slipped over a crisp maroon button up and tucked in slim dark trousers. All the running for his life has done him some good; Leadworth’s miniscule gym couldn’t hold a candle to this kind of exercise. Now, when he cares to look, he can see the firmness of his own limbs beneath the warm, new fabric, and Rory can’t help but feel the unfamiliar ocean wave of something like confidence swell over him. He actually looks...

_ Dress nice, Roranicus, the lovely Xeron 7 and a seven-course dinner awaits! It’s a bit chilly-- in the middle of a controlled winter storm that’s been blasting for around a few hundred years, after all,  _ ah  _ don’t look at me like that, we’ll be  _ inside _ \-- so do dress warm! Nice, warm, blizzard! And  _ you _ too, Amy, it's not that kind of party! _

And it flutters away like a dandelion seed caught in the wind, cowardly and fleeting, his confidence spilling out of his ears all over the floor in a slippery idiotic mess.

So, maybe he’d started using The Closet because it got a couple more disjointed blinks his way from the Doctor from time to time, and even if they were confused blinks they were still directed somewhat his way, and it's all so utterly ridiculous that Rory just wants to hit things sometimes. Said things are usually a toss-up between the Doctor’s face and his own, but his frustration usually ends up with him falling in a sulky silence that Amy diligently continues to takes upon herself-- minus a few clothes-- to snap him out of. He isn’t complaining, but at the same time he  _ is,  _ because Rory the Human is hopeless and ridiculous and needs to stop thinking so much. In particular, about one such alien armed in tweed.

“Rory!” Amy calls, sing-song, her voice rippling along the bronze and copper metal grid lining The Closet’s ceiling.

“Coming!” he sings back, brushing away a bit of invisible flint of the edge of his jacket and swallowing. He’s already a little pink in the face, and Amy’s always got too good of a read on him, so he might as well bite the bullet and move along. He spins on a heel and makes his way into the main console room, and the TARDIS shudders and lands-- a little less bumpy this time round, much appreciated-- as he walks up onto the glass dais.

His beautiful wife is lounging across the console there, grinning boldly at him. And a lucky man he is to be her husband, _cor_. Her dress is deep, starlit navy, with a sharp cut down her sternum that's low and dangerous and maddening. Her long hair, glowing in the dimming TARDIS light, is swooped up in a loose titian up-do, exposing the long, porcelain column of her neck behind long, glittering silver earrings. Around her slim creamy shoulders is a soft, spilling drape of white pelt.

She’s an absolute marvel.

Grinning like an idiot, he sidles over to her and cranes his head, and her smoky eyelashes bat a saucy hello.

“Mrs. Williams,” he says, and really, he’s never get over this husband thing. “You look ravishing tonight.”

“Thank you, Mr. Williams,” she purrs, eyes sliding over him shamelessly. To his credit, he manages not to blush, and a manicured finger slides down his arm. “You look quite dashing yourself...” Her eyes twinkle, quite wicked, and yes, yes, he is indeed the luckiest man in the universe. “...I like the jacket.” Her voice drops low, whiskey smooth. “And you know how acquainted I am with those... tight trousers of yours. Old friends we are...I’ll have to compliment them privately later.”

“Sounds like an enticing offer, Mrs. Williams...I’ll set our rendezvous for the stroke of twelve?” He winks, and her curling grin is all cat.

“Save the date, loverboy,” she replies, leaning in close and huffing a giggle into his ear at their antics. She smells like wintergreen and roses, and Rory wishes there was someone he could personally  _ thank  _ for this. Her green eyes sparkle and they laugh softly at themselves, because marriage has been treating them well, and thanks to The Closet, Amy’s been treating Rory  _ spectacularly  _ well as of late. It’s all very win-win, and honestly, Rory can’t remember what he was worried about.

There’s a small scuffing sound to his left just as his lips brush hers, and they both turn to see a suddenly spinning Timelord, who’s making the painful effort to look like he’s just walked in.

“Ah, hello, good evening!” He asks, words a snatch too quick and flustered. He flaps a black-gloved hand in a fast gesture that might be a wave, and tilts a silk, top-hatted head towards the door. “Ready to wine and dine Xeron 7 then? It’s the winter solstice today, big party, very festive. Lovely people, if not a bit chilly and a bit, er, blue, but they know how to throw a good get-together. I hope you’re hungry, did I mention it was a seven-course meal, lots of different, er, choices, and the wine is very rare and very good-- not that I’ll touch the stuff now, last time I did things got a little-- well, you don’t need to know but I suppose you’ll learn, you two look very...” His voice patters out, its endless stream of babble dying in its tracks. “...Fetching?”

His grey eyes are a bit wide, and there’s a blush of pink on his cheeks.

What.

Amy shoulders him in the ribs, smile much too delighted to be in Rory’s favor this time, and it’s his turn to blush.

_ Christ. _

She’s  _ plotting.  _

“Er, thanks?” he replies, with a small laugh that sounds embarrassingly nervous. His cheeks are  _ aching  _ in a flush. “Er, yeah, um. Ready when you are.”

Amy slides her hands over her white stole, and Rory knows that look in her eyes too well, and this is going to be a  _ long  _ party. She winks at him as the Doctor hurries towards the door, and he barely resists a groan.

“Let’s go see a blizzard.”

^^^

The dinner is lovely. Absurdly lovely, if the strange chocolate dessert and Amy's persistent hand on his thigh are good indications, but throughout the whole dinner Rory's attention is fixed on their friendly neighbourhood Timelord. For one, the bloke can't stop fidgeting the whole night. His grey eyes flit around fast enough to near fly out of his head, bouncing hither and fro until accidentally landing upon them only to skitter wildly somewhere else, and he's always beckoning their gazes towards something or another-- the whirlwind of ice and snow held suspended outside the glass mural behind them, the fluid vibrancy of the nearby crystal fountain made of not glass or ice but still liquid (no, Rory doesn't understand the difference, but Amy's index finger had been focusing quite intently on the inseam of his trousers at the time, and that could explain his lack of focus), or the dialect and homeworld of their three-eyed waiters. At any rate, the Doctor is clearly distracted, or more distracted than usual, anyway. Amy notices too, squeezing his thigh lightly every time the Doctor looks at them and looks away-- and it takes all of Rory's collective willpower not to blush like a schoolgirl from the combination of Amy's ministrations and the Doctor's subtle stumblings every time he meet Rory’s eyes. 

And as impossible as it seems, Rory's not  _ blind.  _ T he color in the Doctor's cheeks, the jitters, the tripping speech...the Doctor is nervous, and combined with the romantic, beautiful atmosphere and Amy's wicked grin, Rory's head is just  _ not _ in the game. The blushing, tittering Timelord is getting more adorable with each passing second, and the exotic wine he keeps sipping is evolving that idea, carrying it past charming and on towards intriguing, and if Rory learned anything from uni, it's that when things start looking intriguing, he should stop drinking and go home before he does something stupid.

But it doesn’t look like home is an option any time soon.

And apparently, neither is second dessert, because this is a dinner with the Doctor. Imminent disaster, marathon running, and world-saving are part of the contract: non-refundable, dangerous derring-do guaranteed. Which is how Rory ends up maneuvering a jerry-rigged bobsled heading down the galaxy’s tallest mountain while Amy attacks the pursuing snow sharks with her dress heels, and how the Doctor manages to light the quite-frankly largest bonfire Rory’s ever seen with a Xeronese fork-- subsequently melting the enemy and jump-starting the planet’s never-before-seen summer season.

Many hours and close calls later, they’re run off the planet by the ungrateful environmentalist Xeronese staff, and they toast to lives-well-saved on the Doctor’s ultra secret ‘Companion Cocoa’ (patent pending) before stumbling off to bed.

Amy makes short work of Rory’s trousers then, and they both finish with the Doctor’s name gasping from their lips.

“We need to do something about this,” he says, and Amy hums her agreement.

And they plot together.

**Author's Note:**

> ugh, i love writing from Rory's POV; guy's so relatable.


End file.
